Laying the budget before the lawmakers at the State House of Assembly yesterday, Governor Ahmed said the proposed budget reflects an increase of N15,781,009,150 or 9.5% compared to the 2017 Revised Appropriation.

Tagged “Budget of Sustained Growth and Prosperity”, the sum of N75,204,257,902 representing 41.3% is for recurrent expenditure, while total sum of N106,681,798,630 which represents 58.7% is earmarked for capital expenditure.

Under the recurrent expenditure, N46,567,379,761 representing 62% is allocated as overhead cost which includes subventions to parastatals, support grants and contributions including overhead cost of tertiary institutions in the state. Personnel cost is expected to gulp N13,918,001,894 or 18.5% of the total recurrent expenditure.

Governor Ahmed explained that the 2018 budget proposal is formulated using the zero-based budgeting approach and its projections were based on the federal government adopted assumptions of oil price benchmark of $45 per barrel and oil production estimate of two point three million barrels per day.

The economic affairs sector has the highest allocation of N53,744,166,521.00 which represents 54.4% of the total capital expenditure, while the health sector is allocated N23,918,380,992.00 representing 22.4%.

The Education Sector has an allocation of N12,628,47,156 which represents 11..8%, while general public services has N7,550,770,62.00 representing 7.1% of the total expenditure.

Governor Ahmed said the government recorded 71% implementation of the 2017 budget with modest achievements in key sectors despite the economic challenges.